What to watch: Formula 1

by George Hornby

With various lockdowns, viruses and starting a new college, some people have found it hard to find something new to look forward to. Luckily, on 23 Sundays every year, 20 young men take their lives in their hands and go out to drive cars around a track at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. And you get to watch.

While some might not see the excitement in watching the same 20 men drive the same 20 cars in the same 20 odd circuits every year, with what feels like the same car and driver winning every weekend, 2021’s Formula One season has offered a new and exciting fight for the world to see. Since 2014, Mercedes has won the Constructors Championship, and their drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have won the Driver’s Championship (Hamilton in 2014,15,17,18,19 & 2020, Rosberg in 2016). This spectacular display of dominance from the German manufacturer is both history-making and, some say, incredibly boring. In 2020 alone, Mercedes won 12 of the 16 races, crowning Lewis Hamilton as a 7 time world champion, equalled only by Michael Schumacher in 2004. However, this period of dominance now has come to an end and a new challenger has emerged - Max Verstappen.

Having made his F1 debut at the tender age of 17, Max Verstappen had raced against legends of the sport before he had passed his driving test. Having won on his debut with the Red Bull team, Verstappen was instantly recognised as a future champion, and Red Bull have gone to great lengths to make sure he has the car to help him on his journey. Since their championship winning years between 2010 and 2013, Red Bull have been considered the third best team on the grid, behind the powerhouses of Ferrari and Mercedes. However, following Ferrari’s dark year of 2020, where they suffered their worst ever season in Formula One, Red Bull were promoted to second best. Winning 2 races in 2020, not many people expected the Red Bull team to be competitive title challengers in 2021, but at the time of writing Max Verstappen leads Lewis Hamilton in the championship by 7 points, with 6 races left to go. The competition at the top in 2021 is unlike anything seen in the last 7 years of Mercedes dominance, and the rivalry at the top hasn’t been seen in years.

Niki Lauda and James Hunt. Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen. Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Driver rivalries are nothing new to Formula One, but the lack of competition in recent years has led to the rivalry between title challengers to quench, with the last proper rivalry being between childhood friends Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2016, which culminated in Rosberg winning the title and summarily retiring from the sport. But in 2021, this caliber of rivalry has returned. Countless wheel to wheel battles between Verstappen and Hamilton have occurred this season, with plenty more on the way. Even though the pair have both come together at times, namely Silverstone,where Verstappen endured a 51G crash, and Monza, where Verstappen’s Red Bull ended up on top of Hamilton’s Mercedes.Their mutual respect for each other as drivers overwhelms their anger over crashes and racing incidents, and culminates in neither driving wanting to back down in the race. And with 6 more races to go, there will inevitably be more action on track to come.

There is not only a fight at the top of the table in 2021. The midfield has enjoyed it’s fair share of battles, with the return to form of Formula One’s two oldest and most prestigious teams; Ferrari and McLaren. After suffering some terrible years, McLaren have managed to rebuild and, coupled with two of the best drivers on the grid in Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, managed to win the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, with Ricciardo on the top step of the podium and Norris in a close second place. Ferrari have also rebuilt from their disastrous 2020, brought upon by their 2019 engine controversy, the details of which are still not fully understood. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz drive the infamous red cars, with both drivers achieving podiums this year, Leclerc in Silverstone and Sainz in Monaco, Hungary and Russia. The battle for 3rd place in the constructors is more tense than ever before, and the gap currently stands at 7.5 points, with McLaren just leading, but with 6 lessons left, anything could change.

The back of the grid has also enjoyed many changes and improvements. American owned, Russian sponsored team Haas has signed Mick Schumacher, a startling young talent who just so happens to be the son of 7 time world champion Michael Schumacher. Even though it is very early in his career, the Ferrari junior driver has already achieved a 12 place finish in Hungary, only 2 places off the points, which, in a Haas, should be somewhere near impossible. He regularly out qualifies and outraces fellow rookie teammate Nikita Mazepin, sometimes in qualifying in excess of a second, which in Formula One is a massive margin. One of F1’s oldest teams is also starting to take strides in a positive direction once again. British team Williams, who have won the constructors championship 9 times and can boast 114 wins since its inception in 1977, have recently dropped to the slower end of the F1 garage, with their last win being in 2012. However, even after not scoring a single point in 2020, in 2021 alone they have scored 23 points, including a second place finish from rising star George Russell at the Belgian Grand Prix, although the “race” was only held over two laps under the safety car thanks to torrential rain and dangerous conditions. Russell himself has been a promising driver since his 2019 debut, and is a member of the Mercedes driver academy, and has recently signed to drive for the Mercedes Formula One team in 2022. The fights all throughout the grid have been exciting all year, and with 8 of the 10 different teams having scored podium places so far this year, there is only more to come.

2021 has also debuted the “Sprint Qualifying” feature in Silverstone and Monza, where instead of the normal qualifying format, there is a shorter race in place of this, in which the winner of this race will start from pole position. A controversial new feature, on paper it simply provides more racing for the audience to enjoy, even if the concept is a tad underbaked. The return to some historic tracks and also some new ones makes 2021 even more exciting. Zandvoort in the Netherlands, which hasn’t been seen since 1985, where Niki Lauda took his final win, Istanbul Park, and Imola where Ayrton Senna suffered the tragic accident that ended his life in 1994, have all returned to the F1 calendar. Alongside them are old favourites, such as Britain’s Silverstone circuit, the “Temple Of Speed” that is Monza and the classic track of Monaco, where Max Verstappen took his maiden Monte-Carlo win this year, one of the three most prestigious awards in all of motorsport, and where he also took lead of the world drivers championship for the first time in his career. 2021 will also debut two new race tracks, in Qatar and Saudi Arabia later this season., which both promise to be exciting new additions to the F1 calendar.

And finally, 2022 promises to be even more exciting than 2021. The regulations for the cars are changing dramatically, which will shake up the grid massively as every team has to build an entirely new car. No matter the result of 2021, whether Hamilton wins his record-breaking 8th title, or Verstappen his 1st, 2022 will be a completely new fight, with George Russell looking to challenge for wins and titles in what will be his first year with the prestigious Mercedes team, and Ferrari and McLaren’s resurgences promising to bring the pack ever closer together, and provide a brand new title fight. So in summary, watch Formula One. A sport with such an incredibly rich history and a very bright future ahead deserves your attention, and there are surely worse ways to spend your Sunday afternoons.